The interior design trends you need to know for 2025

New nudes

Or to phrase it another way: this season’s neutrals of choice. For almost a decade a handful of blush tones (nudes) have dominated, but finally this spring it’s the turn of a palette of pale chalky greens, the colour of milk glass, celadon china, or pistachio ice cream. At John Lewis pistachio has been named the colour of the season. Later this month the store’s popular Leckford stoneware will be launched in this agreeable pale green, from £6 for a salad plate, johnlewis.com. Get the new nude on walls and ceilings from Edward Bulmer Natural Paint: Verdigris emulsion costs £66 for 2.5 litres, edwardbulmerpaint.co.uk.

Etsy’s trend expert Dayna Isom Johnson announced Lime Cream as the brand’s colour of the year, with hero products on the crafty site including glazed pottery light pulls from Little Wren Pottery, £15.50, (etsy.com). And launching next month, Rowen & Wren’s little gem of a couch, Clandon, will be available in soft sage, £1,398, rowenandwren.co.uk.

Posh knobs

Fancy handles have always been the route to making a basic kitchen bespoke. This spring’s decorative pulls make for a quick and easy glow-up for all boring storage. Where to find your posh knobs? Matilda Goad offers a splendid range of hardware, with cast brass handles from £18, matildagoad.com. A pair of Adeline knotted knobs costs £14 at Anthropologie, and coloured glass handles from Graham & Green are just £3.95.

Border rugs

For those who flinch at full-on florals but want a wee bit of ornament on their floor filler, we have just the thing for you: a border rug — a plain rectangle framed with a decorative edge. Some of the most alluring this season are in jute with a fancy cherry red trim. The best example, the John Lewis chevron border jute rug, 120cm x 180cm, £250, will be landing online on January 28. For a few pounds more, there’s a brilliant border rug at Nordic Knots, from £395 for 140cm x 200cm. If you’re on a tighter budget, try Dunelm’s version, from £55 for 120cm x 170cm.

Photo ops

Solitary scrolling on your phone is so 2024. This season it’s all about printing and displaying your favourite pics for everyone to enjoy. Invest in some of the pretty new frames from Oliver Bonas, from £19.50, or push the boat out for Matilda Goad’s striped lacquer ovals, £155, or one of Rockett St George’s cool, contemporary takes on the gilded frame, £22. If you didn’t snap it, did it even happen?

Fluted surfaces

We’re swapping the saccharine sink frills and scalloped edges of cottagecore for a more architectural form of ornament. Fluted surfaces are emerging as the tactile trend for spring 2025. Notable examples include Yinka Ilori’s new Epin Rere ceramic collection, from £120 (shop.yinkailori.com), the Hamish sofa from Soho Home, £9,075 (sohohome.com), a glorious high-gloss sideboard at Heal’s, reduced from £1,799 to £1,439 (heals.com), and the Idra wall light from Dar Lighting, £76.80 (darlighting.co.uk).

Waffles

Repeat after me the slogan of SS25: texture not pattern. And the specific texture we are loving on bath and bed linen is the delicious, delicious waffle. Christy’s Turkish cotton waffle towels are lightweight, super-soft and quick-drying, from £16 (christy.co.uk). Find similar at Dunelm, from £6 (dunelm.com), and buy your waffle bed linen at Dusk, Secret Linen Store and M&S, from £39.50 (marksandspencer.com). Top with a Totterdown waffle blanket from The British Blanket Co, from £80 (thebritishblanketcompany.com).

Teddy takeover

Bye bye bouclé, brace yourself for a teddy bear takeover. Bouclé, the non-negotiable nubbly upholstery of the past few seasons is giving way to something furrier in the form of fleecy, fluffy armchairs and sofas and plushy cushions — in other words, furniture and accessories with the texture of teddy bears. At the haute end of the trend is Buchanan Studio’s super-luxe shearling seat, £5,795, and its Teddy cloud chair, £3,895 (buchanan.studio).

There is a furry footstool called Carnaby at Atkin and Thyme, £199 (atkinandthyme.co.uk), and the Barcelona faux-sheepskin seat, £475, from Where Saints Go (wheresaintsgo.co.uk).

King of fleecy furniture, top of the teds, is of course Timothy Oulton, with his sheepskin-clad Yeti line of sofas and chairs, such as the Cabana armchair, reduced from £2,695 to £2,095 (barkerandstonehouse.co.uk). We say ready teddy go!

Fake it till you make it

The secret formula for the stealth-wealth aesthetic, also known as quiet luxury and minimaluxe, has been leaked to the high street retailers and this spring the rich-list mix of cream/taupe, statement ceramics and curvy sofas can be bought by shoppers at H&M, George Home, M&S and Dunelm, whose Modern Curves chair costs £189 (dunelm.com). The new premium collection at Next, called N., deserves a special shout-out. Dropping on January 30, N. promises marble bathroom accessories, taupe upholstery and sculptural coffee tables, such as the standout piece, the Aviano coffee table, £475. Dress it up — but not too much — with H&M’s tall stoneware vase, £24.99 (hm.com).

Make a beeline for M&S’s collaboration with Kelly Hoppen for minimaluxe bedrooms on a high street budget: the Baretta stitch bedding set costs from £99 (marksandspencer.com).

Contemporary rustic

We crave the cosiness of country style but please hold the chintzy prints, bobbin furniture and Staffordshire flatback spaniels on the dresser. This season’s antidote to twee country clichés is called contemporary rustic. Textures range from terracotta to stoneware, oak and linen. Shapes are simple. Materials are modest and pattern is minimal: ticking is allowed, checks tolerated, but plains preferred.

Icons of contemporary rustic include Toast’s organic cotton ticking stripe duvet cover, from £99 (toa.st), Rowen & Wren’s oak furniture, such as its Everett bedside table, £398, and handmade stoneware butter dishes, £39 (rowenandwren.co.uk). Team Cox & Cox’s 12-piece Lila dinnerware set, £145, and linen tablecloth, £145, with its simplest oak dining table, £995 (coxandcox.co.uk).

Built-in baths go luxe

Let’s hear it for the built-in bath. Why did we ever consider rolltops the most alluring of the tubs? With insets — as they call them in the bath biz — there is the luxury of a ledge, where you can arrange everything from shampoo and conditioner to candles, books and a bottle of wine. Plus you don’t have to scrabble on the floor to clean behind it. Win win. Interior design firms such as Studio Duggan and Studio Vero excel at super-stylish bathroom schemes featuring opulent built-ins. The snazziest insets to buy off the peg include CP Hart’s Jazz Four inset bath, reduced from £919.20 to £643.44 (cphart.co.uk), and the Starlet steel bath by Bette in White, available from Ripples, from £942 (ripplesbathrooms.com). Luxiest of the lot is Drummonds’s The Ness undermounted cast-iron tub, £6,840 (drummonds-uk.com).

Chef’s kiss kitchen seating

While freestanding furniture, including dressers, butcher’s blocks and farmhouse tables, will continue to be in demand, the death of the fitted kitchen has been greatly exaggerated. In fact, we’ll see a revival of built-in seating next year, in the form of the beautiful banquette. Stretching along the length of the dining table, sometimes extending into into an L, topped with a comfortable cushion and featuring storage underneath, the banquette is the interior designer’s top solution for creating a casual, cosy space without sacrificing style. Look at HUX London’s glamorous kitchen projects for inspo. For a sleek, unfussy finishing touch, add a kitchen bench along the other side, such as Furniture Village’s Stockholm dining bench, reduced from £379 to £299 (furniturevillage.co.uk), or Barker and Stonehouse’s Olav dining bench, reduced from £315 to £249 (barkerandstonehouse.co.uk), and season your banquette with decorative lighting overhead, like David Hunt Lighting’s Scallop pendant, £390, or Amelie six-light pendant, from £564 (davidhuntlighting.co.uk).